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Miguel Delaney: International standard - ESPN Soccernet
A very good read this and the author makes alot of good points i must say.
A very good read this and the author makes alot of good points i must say.
quote said:By Miguel Delaney
Didier Deschamps knew instantly. As David Trezeguet thundered the ball into the roof of Italy's net to win Euro 2000, the French captain was struck by a feeling of finality. Amid the centre-circle celebrations, he told manager Roger Lemerre "it's never going to get any better than this".
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Didier Deschamps: Waving goodbye to a golden era of football?
Deschamps was, of course, talking about a French dynasty that had just completed a double. But he might well have been describing international football in general.
In the decade since Trezeguet's moment of glory, it appears the standard has irrevocably declined. It is no longer anywhere near the very top level of the sport. And - despite the current quality of Spain, Germany and, to a lesser degree, Netherlands - international football has never been so open beyond those elite sides.
On Tuesday night, for example, a Slovakian team that reached the last 16 of the 2010 World Cup got trounced 4-0 at home by Armenia. Their Euro 2012 qualifying group, meanwhile, is one of a number that remain on a knife-edge.
With that grand move towards the middle ground, the overall quality has drastically dropped.
The irony is that the future seemed so fascinating in the summer of 2000. Over that month of June in Belgium and the Netherlands, all of the most talented teams had been on top form. Many of the finest attacking players had been so well integrated that a series of sides - particularly the Dutch hosts, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the Czech Republic took their games to elevated levels.
That ensured that, for a rare occasion amid the more random nature of knockout football, the better sides usually won. Indeed, by pioneering a 4-2-3-1 formation with so many fluid forwards, France appeared the 'right' champions. But, despite a certain inevitability to the outcomes as a result of so many sides on top form, the challenge put up by many of the defeated teams (not least Italy in the final) ensured a truly exciting and dynamic tournament. So epic was the carnival of attacking football created that many writers described Euro 2000 as the best international tournament since Mexico 1970.
Unfortunately, though, that description would also fit on a deeper level. Both of those celebrated tournaments would prove dividing lines in football history. Just like Mexico 1970, Euro 2000 ended up as an isolated peak rather than a pointer of things to come. And, just as the Brazilian champions of 1970 would prove a last hurrah for genuinely open, almost innocent, attacking football, that European Championship marked the end of international football's time as the elite level of the game.
Of course, by that point we had already been given a glimpse of the future. In the season immediately preceding Euro 2000, the Champions League had undergone its final expansion to 32 teams. The scale had been increased and the stakes had been raised. It wasn't long until that monolith of a competition completely dominated the football landscape. The top club teams - and, by extension, the top international players - could have their number of fixtures increased by up to 50%.
And that had another effect on the international game beyond just rendering players physically and emotionally jaded for the increasing afterthought of their countries' matches.
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The UEFA Champions League continues to completely dominate the football landscape
Because of the raised stakes and finances of the Champions League, many clubs began to invest much more time and money into preparation. Indeed, the last decade has seen quantum leaps in football science and even the complexity of formations. The very best club teams, for example, spend hours working on attacks in order to improve integration to point they come off so much quicker.
And, as Jonathan Wilson wrote in a recent edition of World Soccer, that's the kind of investment beyond international managers. The outcome has been a move towards more defensive football at international level. But, consequently, much more open competitions too.
Because, unlike attacking football - which requires a deeper understanding that must be built up - the defensive game requires a more superficial discipline that can be placed on a team top down. As such, many international managers understandably concentrate more on the backline in their short time with teams. By contrast, the more gifted attackers are largely left to try and win games with individual moments of inspiration.
Indeed, the ultimate examples of this were a disjointed Dutch team in the last World Cup and Portugal over the last half-decade. Both had rock-solid defences but rigid, one-dimensional attacks despite the qualities of their forwards. And, since it is usually the lesser nations that lack attacking quality, this makes it much easier for them to bridge the gap.
The results are clear when you look at the last four sides in all of the World Cups and European Championships over the last four decades. With a total of 20 places available in each period, the following are the number of different semi-finalists in each decade from both of those tournaments:
1970-78:
12 (4 West Germany, 3 Holland, 3 Brazil, 2 Italy, 1 Uruguay, USSR, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Argentina)
1980-88:
12 (4 West Germany, 3 Italy, 3 France, 2 Belgium, 1 Czechoslovakia, Poland, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, Argentina, Holland, USSR)
1990-98:
12 (3 West Germany, 2 Italy, 2 England, 2 Holland, 2 Sweden, 2 France, 2 Brazil, 1 Argentina, Denmark, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia)
And, with Euro 2000 as a watershed:
2002-10:
13 (4 Germany, 2 Turkey, 2 Portugal, 2 Holland, 2 Spain, 1 Brazil, Korea, Greece, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Russia, Uruguay)
The last five tournaments have clearly been more open. And, even though they have only seen an increase of one in terms of semi-finalists, it's not just about the numbers. It's also about the names. With generally one exception every 10 years, each of the semi-finalists from the previous three decades had some recent record of success or particularly special pool of talent. Not so in the cases of Greece, South Korea, Turkey and Uruguay since 2000. And that offers hope to all manner of mid-sized countries - let alone relative underachievers such as England.
The recent Copa America was another clear example. Despite the outstanding attacking players of Brazil and Argentina, their inability to properly integrate them brought only frustration against disciplined defensive units. As such, their traditional places at the peak of the international game have been well and truly taken by Spain and Germany.
no_source / Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images
Germany and Spain's players are more used to the 'national style' than other countries
Yet, another irony of all this is that we're now likely to have an elite level who appear more advanced than at any other stage in history. It isn't hard to imagine both Spain and Germany dominating for at least the next decade.
But that's also because their investment in grassroots has allowed them to bypass the kind of problems other nations face. With young players from both countries having been so well inculcated and coached in highly technical systems, the 'national style' becomes second nature. As such, imposing a framework becomes much less of an issue for their managers.
In the meantime, the rest of the world must fight on by imposing contentious formations on frustrated players. And, all the while, the gap closes everywhere except between the top two and the rest. For the moment, it's not going to get any better than them.
